The Kettle Shed's Tea Blog

Tag Archives: matcha powder

Hands up. Who’s feeling like they over indulged this Christmas? Too much sherry and chocolates? Lots of sitting around watching films? We hear you! At The Kettle Shed, we’re certainly feeling like we ate too many mince pies but we know just the cure, Matcha Green Tea! It’s the perfect way to detox post Christmas and to give you and the new year a healthy kick start!

Health Benefits

But why is it so good? Well, as with any green tea, the drinker can expect to benefit from the wide range of antioxidants that come in every cup. But matcha tea is quite special when it comes to the levels of antioxidants. With approximately 15 times more antioxidants than most green teas, matcha is a super-strong toxin-killing tea that will leave you feeling refreshed and clean. This delicious and delightfully green tea has some great energy boosting properties that give you that burst you need to feel better and get on with your day. What’s more is this tea is an excellent calorie burner too, and that’s something most of us will want to make use of. Add the calorie burning effect on top of the energy boost, and it’s likely you’ll burn a few more calories than you would if you drank an energy drink.

Matcha Tea Origins

Although matcha tea is considered to be a fairly new product in the western world, it has in fact been drunk in Japan for a very long time. Taken from China to Japan almost one thousand years ago, it is rumoured a Zen Monk by the name of Eisai brought the tea seeds to Japan. Since then, Zen Buddha’s have drunk matcha tea to help them focus while they meditate. As well as introducing matcha tea to Japan, Eisai also introduced some Zen philosophies, and some became intertwined with drinking this wonderful tea. Specific preparation and drinking rituals were undertaken in The Way of Tea, which was an important ceremony at that time.

How to drink it

Matcha tea cannot be drunk in the same way as other teas because of its flavour and antioxidant properties. To ensure you enjoy your cuppa perfectly, read the following instructions:

1. Warm your mug or cup with got water before pouring the water away. Make sure you also warm you utensils too as it will help to prevent the tea from cooling too quickly.

2. Add around 3 grams of matcha powder per 150 ml of water to you cup/mug.

3. Boil your water and allow it to cool slightly.

4. Add enough the hot water to your cup/mug to just cover the powder and whisk in a forwards and backwards motion so a paste is formed.

5. Add the remaining hot water and continue to stir the tea until you have a smooth and frothy consistency.

Top Tip! When you drink this tea, you should ideally sip it, this will make sure you avoid the crash you would usually get with caffeinated drinks. Sipping the tea will also give you more time to enjoy the smooth velvety flavour that has an adorable leafy essence.

We have all been there right? It gets to mid-morning and you start to hit ‘the wall’, so you have a coffee to try and replenish and kick your energy levels up a bit, straight away you feel that amazing rush of energy that then unfortunately as The Guardian says “it sends you to the moon, jittery and anxious, with your heart skittering?”you then severely crash and burn on average 5-10 minutes after you had that coffee and then are even more drowsy than you were before the coffee itself.

If this sounds like it happens to you or even if you are just looking to get a bit of natural jitter free energy then our Kettle Shed Matcha Powder is the way forward. Matcha is finely milled or fine powder green tea. The Japanese tea ceremony centres on the preparation, serving, and drinking of matcha.

Coffee can be addictive. It requires you to drink more and more to get the same “high” and eventually is needed just to feel “normal.” It can cause headaches, exhaustion, and other biological signs of withdrawal symptoms whereas….

Matcha contains L-Theanine that has a calming, relaxing effect and slows the release of tea-caffeine. Which means you get the same amount of energy input but spread out so there is no jitters and you get a natural energy booster that sticks around for alot longer! Here are a few extra facts on the positives of Matcha:

– Matcha provides 34mg of caffeine – but its effect lasts longer than a coffee’s 60mg.

– Matcha contains higher levels of antioxidants per gram than goji berries, dark chocolate, pecans, acai berries and even spinach. It also can be used as a sliming aid & makes you’re body wake up.

– Japanese Zen Buddhist monks have been using matcha as a meditational drink for over 800 years through tea ceremonies and more recently westerners have been tapping into the superfood too.

We asked one of our staff that swapped their daily cups of coffee for matcha and this is what they said: “Even after my first Kettle Shed matcha ‘shot’ of the day I am pleasantly surprised by the caffeine kick and feel alert without any kind of edginess or anxiety that sometimes comes with a strong coffee.”

So how is Matcha different to normal green tea??

If you compare that to what you’d get from a tea bag – one bowl of matcha is equivalent to approximately 10 cups of regular green tea. That is because matcha powder uses the entire green tea leaf, instead of just dipping the leaf in hot water which provides only around 10% of the plant’s nutrients. It is also 15 times stronger than one green tea bag.

Matcha is simple to make and can be drank in a variety of ways such as a tea, expresso mixed with normal juice & can also be put in recipes such as White Chocolate cookies or white hot chocolate.

We put recipes up every few weeks so look out for them on our Social Media pages all can be found below, check on our website www.thekettleshed.com for more info on matcha.

And remember ask us any time for any questions on certain types of tea we are happy to answer, WE GIVE A CUP!